Armed Forces: The Mutineers

One morning last October, 27 prisoners
at the Presidio stockade in San Francisco disrupted roll call by
staging a sitdown demonstration. The inmates said they were protesting
against the action of a guard, who had needlessly shotgunned a
suicidal prisoner trying to escape. They also complained of the
unsanitary conditions of the stockade. The Army charged the 27 men with
mutiny, and at the first of a series of courts-martial, three of them
received sentences of up to 16 years (TIME, Feb. 21). There was an
immediate public outcry at the harsh...